


Old Scars

by blindinkpoet



Series: Broken Weapon [1]
Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: Blood and Gore, F/M, Gladiators, Implied Sexual Content, Scars, Tattoos
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-28
Updated: 2019-08-28
Packaged: 2020-09-28 12:43:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 501
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20426177
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blindinkpoet/pseuds/blindinkpoet
Summary: Everyone starts somewhere. Every story has a beginning. This is not it.





	Old Scars

The crowd went nuts as the highlander man, easily twice the size of his opponent, fell on the sand, bloodied hands clutching his abdomen. The cut had been swift and precise, the blade splitting the leather armor and reaching for the meat beneath as easily as if it were a hot knife cutting through butter.   
  
Mana’to would get whipped for that later. He knew that, even as he dropped his sword and began to walk away from the arena. He had finished it too quickly, had been too brutal, and the  _ Kind Master _ didn’t like when he did so. There was a small part of him that coiled at what he had become.   
  
The rest of him didn’t care.   
  
***

As he had predicted, he had gotten the whip. It hadn’t been  _ too hard, _ he hadn’t even bled, but still his sore back ached as he crawled to the “bathtub”, really only a dish with water and tried to clean off the dust stuck to his body. Leniency with the whip meant that someone had bought his time after the combat. He had to be “presentable,” even if he couldn’t help but wince every time his fingers lingered a second too long on one of his many scars.   
  
“That’s not the body a fifteen year old should have…” whispered a soothing voice behind him. He turned, eyes down, to greet her.   
  
“Thank you for your patronage, ma’am,” she had never shared her name, and he knew better than to ask.   
  
“Oh, my poor child…” she said, cutting the distance in a couple of steps and pulling him for a hug. “What you endure, no spoken should.”   
  
He said nothing. Did nothing. He stood there, trying not to grimace as the smell of lavender invaded his nostrils. She had overdone it with the perfume. Again. But he knew better than to say anything.   
  
“Come, sit down. I’ll clean you up and then we’ll make everything better, ok?” she pulled, not quite dragged him back to the bed. He didn’t resist. He knew better.   
  
***

“You’re not the first, you know?”   
Mana’to startled, drawn from his daydream, and looked at the tattooist confused. “Not the first?”   
“Released slave that wants to hide the brand,” she replied. Again, he wondered  _ why _ he had come. Why he had let this miqo’te convince him to “get inked”. But she hadn’t asked questions… until now.

“I imagine not…” he managed to reply through the knot in his throat.

“You’ll be fine,” she replied, showing him a sketch. It wasn’t too intricate, a crown of daisies that would wrap around his wrist, concealing the brand. Or at least, that was the plan. “The worst is behind you. Now you have a life to look forward to.”   
“Yeah… I guess that’s true,” he lied. But she didn’t need to know. “Thank you for doing this.”

“It’s my job,” she smiled, pulling the needles and the ink. “Now, take a deep breath, and relax. This won’t hurt a bit.”   
  
He knew better.   



End file.
